On the corner where you're standing begins the street of , the toughest politician of 's generation and the man who, in the end, cost him his city.
At the base of a few facades a little further along, you can still see heavy square blocks of stone that once belonged to the feet of towers that have since vanished. This is how the street looked when the Donati lived here: a row of fortified houses whose residents ran into one another in the street and kept an eye on each other from up high.
The Donati led the faction that brought in to seize power in Florence, and when they succeeded in 1301 their opponents disappeared from government. Dante was one of those opponents, and yet he was married to , from that very family, because marriages were a way of buying peace between clans that would otherwise be at each other's throats.
That's how personal politics was here. Your opponent lived around the corner, dined with your in-laws, and owned the tower you walked past every morning, and in quite a few of these neighbours turn up again, neatly sorted into the circles of hell that Dante felt suited them best.
Follow the street west and turn right, toward the cathedral square.
Sources. Story: Treccani (Corso Donati, Guelfi bianchi e neri); Museo Casa di Dante, Firenze (Dante e la politica fiorentina)
